Yet another betrayal of the body

I started wearing glasses when I was about five. It was somewhat a badge of honour in our house to have lousy vision. I remember my dad saying he could hear better with his glasses on, which made no sense at all. At some point, when I was about ten, I realized that it was probably true. It wasn't an ear thing, but when your vision truly sucks the world is confusing on a whole lot of levels.

For about 40 years it was pretty much glasses-shamasses. You got up in the morning, put the damn things on and the world came alive. I quickly figured out that the whole "boys don't make passes at girls who where glasses" was a lie, so as long as I could see, the fact that I did it through prescription lenses was pretty much a non-issue.

I maintained the same cavalier attitude when the eye doctor asked whether I wanted bifocals or the newfangled no line type specs. I could see just fine, so I was fine.

I guess I was in my late 40s when no amount of manipulation of my lenses made it easy to read. I went through a glasses on, glasses off period and did that silly thing where I tried to move my arms back and forth in order to manipulate what I was reading until it was just right. Fortunately, I learned how to zoom in on the computer and figured out how to read in bed with the book positioned correctly so everything more or less worked out.

About a week or so ago I noticed a sudden increase in floaters in my left eye. Initially I thought wayward strands of hair were falling down over the eye, but no, my hair was where it was supposed to be. I puzzled over it for a bit, alternating between being amused by what looked like little critters dancing back and forth across my left eye, and worried that one day there would be so many of the buggers that I couldn't see at all.

Finally, I went to the doctor. She is very young, way too young, but then all the doctors my age have retired or only see patients on sunny Tuesday afternoons in July. She was reassuring, in an appealing coltish way, and told me that the goo in my eye (I guess I no longer look like the kind of person who can comprehend words like vitreous humor) had dried up a bit and that the floaters were the result.

Apparently if they get bad enough there is some sort of laser treatment that will zap them away. At least she said laser. If she had said something like "very bright pointy light" I probably would have popped her one.

Like most getting-older women, I knew that juicy eventually comes to an end. I just didn't know that it came to an end for eyes.